Mark Walter is now the majority owner of the Los Angeles Lakers. That means the Lakers and L.A. Dodgers are under the same branch, despite how different each team’s front office and success currently look.
General manager Rob Pelinka and governor Jeanie Buss are still the head decision-makers for the Lakers, but Walter has gotten significantly increased input.
The Lakers are now entering a multi-year process of modeling their own front office to reflect that of the Dodgers. Led by Andrew Friedman and one of MLB’s deepest scouting, analytics and development teams, the Dodgers have won back-to-back World Series’ while maintaining one of the best farm systems in baseball.
Baseball and basketball are obviously much different in terms of league structure, but it can only help the Lakers to try and be more like their L.A. counterparts. Friedman and Walter have been providing counsel to Pelinka, who appreciates everything they’ve done up to this point, via Dave McMenamin of ESPN:
“[It’s] been great to have sort of outside allies and advocates looking at the Dodgers and the success they’ve had and what they’ve built over there, and being able to tap into a person like Andrew Friedman for best practices,” Pelinka said.
Pelinka gave high praise to Friedman, who has been viewed by many as the architect of the budding Dodgers dynasty:
“He’s so incredibly smart and has done such an amazing job bringing championships to the Dodgers,” Pelinka said. “So just to have another head of another team that you can, whether it’s a roster move, whether it’s a staff move, just someone that you can talk to has been an incredible resource.”
The Lakers modeling themselves after the Dodgers could come with significant changes. Those were all laid out in a conversation between Walter, Pelinka and Buss:
“When Mark bought the team, Jeanie and I did a really deep dive with him on sort of the areas he wants to grow and move into and get aggressive,” Pelinka said. “Looking at the Dodgers and how they built it out has been a great sort of example and North Star. And so we’re still going through that process of how we’ll look in the offseason and what additions we’ll make. But there will be some positive changes, and we will build things out.”
When getting into specifics, Pelinka mentioned the depth and spending power of the Dodgers’ operation:
“[The Dodgers], just the way they’ve sort of built out their front office, how deep it is — there is no expense they’ll spare in being the best sort of front office in the world,” Pelinka said.
All of that is music to the ears of Lakers fans, who would love to see a more significant investment in things like scouting and analytics. Running a small front office is extremely limiting in the modern NBA, as it doesn’t allow for some of the creativity that has been displayed from teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder in their dealings.
Pelinka and Buss, for now, are still leading that charge. But with some help behind them, they could revive the Lakers franchise to more than just a star destination.
Rob Pelinka believes Lakers were aggressive at trade deadline
The Lakers made one move at the trade deadline, sending Gabe Vincent and a 2032 second-round pick to the Atlanta Hawks for Luke Kennard. However, Pelinka still saw their deadline approach as aggressive, saying that they were aggressive in rejecting bad offers to keep optionality ahead of a very important summer.
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